The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) last week got a $100 million dollar shot in the arm from the wealthy, Russian Silicon Valley entrepreneur Yuri Milner. At the London launch of this new project, dubbed Breakthrough Listen, Stephen Hawking made some inspiring observations: To understand the universe, you must know about atoms — about the forces that bind them, the contours of space and time, the birth and death of stars, the dance of galaxies, the secrets of black holes.